Echoing White House, Kristol attacked Pelosi for trip to Syria, which GOP-led delegation also visited

Written by Marcia Kuntz

Published


On the April 1 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor and Fox News contributor Bill Kristol repeated an attack by the White House on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for planning to go to Syria while her bipartisan delegation is traveling in the Middle East this week. But, as the weblog Think Progress reported on March 30, a Republican-led congressional delegation is also visiting Syria, a trip that the White House has apparently not criticized similarly. Kristol did not mention the reported Republican-led trip to Syria, much less the inconsistency in the White House's criticism of Pelosi's trip and its silence on the Republican-led trip.

On April 1, the Associated Press reported that a delegation of House members including Reps. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA), and Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) had met with Syrian President Bashar Assad, two days before Pelosi's planned meeting.

From Fox News Sunday's April 1 panel discussion:

KRISTOL: Nancy Pelosi, having undercut our troops in the field, is now going off to see -- to Syria to pay her respects to Bashar Assad, who's allowing terrorists to come across the [Iraqi] border to kill American troops.

Neither of the other Fox News Sunday panelists -- National Public Radio's Mara Liasson and Fox News Washington bureau managing editor Brit Hume -- nor host Chris Wallace noted the inconsistency between the White House's and Kristol's criticism of Pelosi and their silence on the GOP congressional trip.

The New York Times reported on March 31:

A planned visit to Syria next week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi drew criticism on Friday from the White House, which accused the Democratic Congressional leader of failing to heed the administration's admonitions against travel to Damascus.

[...]

“We don't think it's a good idea,” said the White House deputy press secretary, Dana Perino, of the Congressional visit. “We think that someone should take a step back and think about the message that it sends.”

[...]

In an interview Friday, [Pelosi spokesman Brendan] Daly said a separate group of Republicans, including Representatives Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania and Robert B. Aderholt of Alabama, also was visiting Syria.